Urgent Registry Option – A House

Though the request is unusual, maybe you can make a personal loan to our friend to buy a house directly across the street from us.

Our good friend Andy Stepnick, who will be officiating our wedding with his wife Jen, is interested in buying 550 Winthrop, the house across the street. The property was foreclosed on a couple of years ago and has since been sold to Florida investors, who have never personally visited the property, as far as we know. Andy tried to buy it eight months ago, but the investors didn’t have title in their name and the land contract offered didn’t meet the specifications of Ohio or Toledo law (which the groom helped to write and get passed.) The investors recently got title in their name and started trying to sell the property again, but the highest bid at a recent auction didn’t meet the reserve. Andy has been talking to a local realtor, who is pressuring him to make a written offer as soon as possible. We think Andy can make a successful bid for a fraction of the assessed value of the house, but a little more money will ensure the transaction happens and our neighborhood improves.

Andy’s purchase of the house will help us out in more ways than just having great friends right across the street. Jen is in school now to become a Montessori teacher and dreams of opening a Montessori school in the Old West End. We’re extremely confident Jen can open a great school where we would love to send our kids, partly because she and Andy have raised the most polite, well-mannered, creative little girl I have ever met. Jen, Andy and I were recently discussing our ceremony and Mya got a big idea. She waited until we were finished talking and then offered four chairs that she had that would be perfect for other little children like her! The basement at 550 Winthrop is large enough to be a schoolroom, and nothing would make us happier than sending our kids to school across the street.

And if Andy doesn’t buy the house, we are afraid that it will meet the same fate as so many homes in Toledo – passed around between speculators and abandoned in every sense except for paper ownership. The little value left in the homes will be destroyed by lack of maintenance and looters (all the fixtures in 550 Winthrop have been ripped out in the last few months). We don’t want to see 550 Winthrop become the third vacant home on our block.

If you think it might be a possibility to help, please let me know as soon as possible. We can work out the terms of the loan and a repayment plan. We are willing to help the Stepnicks repay the loans, because we were planning to help them buy the house until we realized wedding expenses and house expenses make money too tight right now. Please consider helping make our neighborhood the place where we want to spend the rest of our lives!